Cambridge Audio Melomania 1+ True Wireless Earbuds - Bluetooth 5.0, Hi-Fi Sound, In Ear Headphones for iPhone and Android with Charging Case and App Control (Black)

I was on the lookout for a new pair of buds. Had been using the MiFo ones for about three years, fit was good but found them finicky to use and would encounter drop outs that sometimes wouldn’t recover and would need to be placed back in their case to re-pair - which is a heavy, chunky beast to take on a walk or run.I’ve always been intrigued by the Melomania ones from Cambridge Audio. Very familiar with their hifi components.Finally decided to give the newer Plus versions a try as heavily discounted now.My typical use for these is walking and some running with an Apple Watch as the sound source.I really like these a lot. Firstly, they fit fine. I use the foam tips and while a bit of trial and error to get the fit right I now have it down. Just need to experiment a bit. They stay in and while at first I’d sometimes get a scratchy ear canal after an hour they didn’t cause me any discomfort that some have reported. Actually, after using them for awhile now, I can’t say I’ve experienced the scratchy ear canal issue anymore.I love the hard buttons on these. I’d have to use the Apple Watch in the past with the MiFo buds to skip tracks forward and back and adjust volume simply because the hard button on the buds were too tiny and not very intuitive to use in reality.The buttons on the Melomanias are very intuitive and after once or twice of real-world usage they became second nature. Others have complained that when using the buttons they disrupt the seal or fit, or hurt because you end up pressing them further into the ears. I didn’t find this a big deal, honestly, and developed a technique to press the buttons that didn’t result in jamming them in your ears. Just be light, and support the back of your ear with your thumb, no need to press too hard. The only caveat is that sometimes I’d want to skip a track and when I went to double-tap while moving I might not get the second tap right and end up doing a single tap which would pause it. Simply press again to unpause and try again.Having these physical buttons also means I can use them with gloves in colder weather, unlike the touch sensitive type burrows s on some buds.The sound is fantastic! I’m an audio guy so good sound is important- even though I’m not so picky about it when doing physical activity. But these tick all the boxes - great sound in conjunction with the ability to do physical activity with them on. The sound is on the polite side so I did my own EQ on them with the available app which helped especially with my ageing and abused ears. This was mainly boosting a bit of the mids and highs. Which brings me to another great feature - the EQ profile stays saved on the buds - not necessary to have the phone/app around to use the EQ profile - unless you wish to change it later.The bass is more than adequate for me especially when I have good seal with the foam tips. I found I didn’t need to boost the bass at all.The case - wow. Such a simple thing to like about these but I’m impressed. The case is small and light but holds more than enough charge. I went away for two days and forget the charging cable. After using the buds for two long train journeys, sitting in stations, walks and at night in bed they were still adequately charged and the case still had plenty of power in reserve when I arrived home.The small form factor of the case makes it so I could bring it with me on a walk or run if I wished in the limited available pockets on activity clothing in the summer and never feel bogged down by something heavy or the feeling of carrying something lumpy around. I can put it in a backpack and if I need to feel around for it amongst all sorts of other things it is easily recognisable despite its small size by feel because of it's unique shape.There’s an area where I walk and run where I always get Bluetooth dropouts with any wireless buds or headphones. With the MiFos I’d get the drop out and 50 percent of the time they would either recover or just end up dropping connection permanently.. This meant carrying the heavy case around to resync them (not happening), go on with my activity with no music or go back home to resync them with the case. I’d never know - it was a gamble. With the Melomanias I’d still get the connection dropping in this area but they ALWAYS recovered 100 percent of the time. I could rely on them reconnecting with the Apple watch after the connection dropped. No worries!All in all, I’m very pleased with the Melomanias. I’d definitely buy these again in a heartbeat if lost, not a second thought of anything else. At the current price they are a huge bargain.

These Cambridge Audio Melomania 1+’s were my second option. I initially bought a set of Soundcore P3i earbuds, but returned them the next day as I couldn’t find a point wherein my ears were properly sealed, resulting in a tinny, weak sound. I tried all three silicon tips provided, but no option worked for me. This was a shame, as I love my Soundcore Q30 wireless over-ears, and was hoping that the P3i’s might deliver similar results.The Cambridge Melomania 1+’s are probably the best sounding in-ear buds I’ve had. I loved their sound straight out of the box - nice and balanced, with tight bass, smooth mids and clear treble. Nothing is overwhelming or harsh in terms of tone, and these buds offer great detail - with a nice, wide, airy presentation. I’ve rinsed them with everything: classical, old school drum ‘n’ bass, jazz, metal, reggae, rock and pop, and it all sounds great - they take everything in their stride. If you’re a basshead then you might want to look at other options, although I found the lower frequencies to be just right. Listening to a bass-heavy recording such as Lee Perry’s ‘Scratch The Super Ape’ or Massive Attack’s ‘Mezzanine’ still delivers the cavernous frequencies you’d expect.You get a load of earbud tips to try out - both silicon and foam - and I found that the large silicon options worked best for me, giving the tightest seal. The memory foam tips I found a bit hit and miss - I had to fiddle around to get a proper fit, and seemed to get different results each time. The buds aren’t noise cancelling and don’t claim to be, but do a pretty good job of blocking out surrounding noise. I would definitely say that the sound quality is very much dependent on finding the right bud tips, though - so play around with the options presented to find what works for you.You’re encouraged to download the Melomania app, which offers preset EQ settings (I found the default setting to be fine, but it was nice to have the option) and up to three of your own customised versions. It also gives an indication of battery life for each earbud. They don’t seem to drain battery equally, but this is normal apparently. The app itself is nicely presented and easy to navigate - but I’ve found it to be very buggy. I’ve had to force close and re-open the app a few times to get it to connect to the buds. In fact, the app is without a doubt the most buggy on my iPhone. This is a real shame. Cambridge, maybe think about your tech department! As a comparison, the Soundcore app I use with my Q30 cans has not given me any trouble whatsoever over the past two years.Each earbud contains a physical push button in the housing which enables you to play and pause music, skip back and forth through tracks, raise and lower volume, answer calls and summon your phone’s virtual assistant. This works very well, although I’ve seen that some folk complain that when adjusting the buds for the perfect fit, they’ve inadvertently pressed the buttons and skipped tracks or paused their music. This is easily done, but the app helpfully provides an option to disable use of the button for some - or all - functions, so that’s quite good.The Melomania buds themselves are housed in a diminutive and very smart-looking carry case when not in use, which doubles as a charging station. The battery life seems fine - I charge the case every week or so when one light out of five lights are showing on its battery indicator, based on around 3 hours of listening each day. This might not be as advertised, but is a decent amount of juice.In conclusion, I can’t see any reason not to give these earbuds full marks. The fact that they were initially on sale for £120, then £100, and now £50 (!?) is a no-brainer trial purchase at least. Even with the few small drawbacks, these are brilliant earphones. I would find it hard to believe that there’s a better option at this price.